Chris InglisGotham Knights is an open world RPG developed by Warner Bros. Games Montréal and releases on October 21, 2022 on PC, Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5. It’s been seven years since we last had a Batman game, only this time we aren’t playing as Batman. The introduction sequence details the death of Bruce Wayne/Batman, so we are tasked with seeking out the truth while playing as either Batgirl, Robin, Nightwing or Red Hood, to take back control of Gotham from crime games of both old and new enemies. I was surprised by the amazing level of detail put into Gotham City, and once I started playing online co-op with my brother-in-law Juzzza, this has fast become one of our favourite games in the Batman universe. Not having local co-op is a bummer but I would recommend playing this online co-op if you can as its so much more fun kicking ass together.
Gotham Knights is a standalone story, separate to the connected tales told in the Arkham series of Batman: Arkham Asylum (2009), Batman: Arkham City (2011), Batman: Arkham Origins (2013) and Batman: Arkham Knight (2015). In this game Batman is dead, and we see the Batman family come together with the legendary Alfred as crime never stops. In fact, with Batman not around, it’s got worse with gangs getting bolder and the cops looking the other way. You must select a character to play initially, however once you have set up the new HQ at the Belfry clock tower, you can freely swap between any of the characters. So don’t feel pressure to choose your favourite as you are not locked in and can change freely between night patrols.
There are many advantages of trying different characters including using unique abilities per hero and crafting gear to make them all look bad ass. More importantly for me though was discovering the backstory through memories and items found within the HQ, revealing the emotions and motives of each character as they deal with the grief and loss of Bruce. The voice acting of all major characters is outstanding. I was pleased to hear Elias Toufexis voicing The Penguin, but every voice actor did an amazing and believable job. It certainly made me connect with the characters more deeply. Batgirl can hack enemy weapons and electronics, turning them against the aggressors, Nightwing has a fluid and agile combat style with dual escrima sticks, Robin is a tech and stealth expert, instilling fear in the enemy with his wraith ability, and Red Hood is an expert marksman with his dual pistols.
Also in the HQ are 12 training missions that will teach you how to grapple, stealth, tackle and fight using numerous techniques, as well as a crafting table to make items with resources you collect in the field. I loved the crafting and customisation elements as, not only do you need to keep making your character more powerful, but you can also make them look bloody cool too. The transmog system means you can keep up with the power of your items but change the look of your character’s suit. There are also mods you can collect and imbue to increase the power of your items. This became more of a focus about halfway through the story as enemies and missions started to get tougher.
The gameplay of Gotham Knights is outstanding with a good balance of exploration, stealth sequences, and action combat. After choosing your hero (I chose Red Hood and Juzzza chose Nigthwing), you play through an intro sequence which is completed solo. You cannot play co-op until an hour or so in, but it does well to teach you mechanics of the game and your chosen character’s skillset. Playing in third-person view, looking out from a rooftop over Gotham City is breathtaking and this is said to be the biggest version of Gotham that has been represented in a game. There are five distinct boroughs of the city that we can patrol, and on the map you will see various types of crimes, caches you may have swung past previously, as well as some characters you can visit as you progress the story.
I have an RTX 3080, and the game ran mostly at 144fps which looked incredible. Cutscenes were locked on PC at 60fps, and I feel for console players who will have their gameplay locked at 30fps. As I started to grapple from building to building and get into close quarters melee fights, the performance started to dip a little. The game also crashed a fair number of times for me, but only about half as much for Juzzza. Thankfully though if we did crash mid-mission, the game usually booted up quicker and we never lost too much progress thanks to the game saving often. The game even saved our partial progress while fighting a boss where the boss was in the second phase of the fight, so we were pretty impressed with that as it was a particularly challenging boss that we were undergeared for.
Each playable character has unique abilities and it’s worth experimenting with all of them to find your favourite playstyle. There is a skill tree with three talent pools that you can specialise points into, as well as the fourth knighthood tree. I spent the least amount of time in the skill tree as all other aspects of the game were grabbing my attention. Each character has a grappling hook, a ranged weapon, and a melee weapon.
Grappling honestly makes the game feel like you are Spider-Man but you didn’t have to contend with swinging, the grapple just shoots you straight to your target. Holding down shift as you land will spring you into the air ready to hit the next grapple point. You are also able to spawn in a batcycle which looks incredible, and the transition is so smooth and seamless that even before you land from grappling, the batcycle can be summoned so you can land right on it. Off you burn and you can wheelie over small vehicles and jumps, and you can eject out of the seat, then grapple onwards. So cool!
Initially you are confined to roadways and bridges as you can’t grapple over water. I unlocked fast travelling by drone before unlocking Knighthood, which gains a unique travel ability per character. Nightwing has a glider which we found was good for taking in the sights but slow moving, whereas Red Hood creates small energy clouds to keep jumping across and this was much faster. Once we gained these abilities, the game’s momentum really picked up the pace.
There are so many activities and side quests available to you, which is a great way to break up the gameplay. Sometimes I would just clear the map of crimes, other times I stuck to the story, but I often got distracted by the shine of a batarang collectible or come across a secret cache that we had to work out how to access. In an open world game like this with so many things to do, I usually feel overwhelmed with choice and lose focus too easily. However, with Gotham Knights I loved being able to quickly complete a side activity while on the way to a major story quest and never felt overwhelmed or confused as what to do next.
The main story is extremely engaging and well written, backed up by music that sets the mood and tone perfectly. Juzzza and I were engrossed with the cutscenes and dialogue between our crew, coming across villains such as Harley Quinn, The Penguin and Mr Freeze, discovering the Court of Owls, as well as numerous allies we met along the way. There’s plenty of choice in how to tackle a mission too with a primary objective but also bonus objectives, like completing a certain number of quiet kills or grabbing and throwing several enemy units which netted your more XP. We usually started off stealthily taking out targets and you sometimes must avoid and disable cameras, but it was usually me that stuffed things up and we’d just go in guns blazing. Some of the boss fights were intense and quite challenging on normal difficulty but completing them felt very satisfying.
Overall, Gotham Knights is a fantastic experience whether you’re a Batman fanatic or if this is your first Batman game. The gameplay is excellent with a good balance of exploration, stealth and action combat, particularly when facing tough boss encounters. The world design is phenomenal, especially when Gotham is transformed in parts of the story. This incredible detail performed very well on PC with only some minor graphical glitches. My game did crash a number of times during the review period but only occasionally for my bro-in-law. Local co-op is a missed opportunity, though I am thankful for online co-op, and I would recommend you play it co-op as it was an absolute blast.
This review utilised a Steam key provided by Plaion ANZ and Gotham Knights will launch on October 21, 2022 on Steam, Epic Games Store, Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5.
#roundtablecoop
Written by: @ChrisJInglis
